Page 1 of A Touch of Darkness (Chronicles of the Cursed #1)

From the moment I saw her name on the university’s roster, something called me to her. How can mere letters on paper ignite such a fire in my soul? I'll never know—and it seems, after nearly two centuries of walking this earth, I may never find out.

I waited impatiently for the first day of the new school year. I needed to see her with my own eyes to be sure, to truly know my intuition hadn’t failed me again. I refrained from searching her name online, though I nearly gave in to that temptation more times than I care to admit. I've never been good at controlling myself. But I needed to know I still had some semblance of humanity to cling to, to remind me of what I once was—and what I’ll never be again. My intuition was always sharp when I was human—even sharper than it is now, though my peers wouldn't believe that. Yes, I possess other, more desirable abilities now. But my human intuition? It's one of the things I miss most, even after all this time.

When the day finally arrived, I was practically bursting at the seams, waiting like a starving man for even the smallest glimpse of her. And then, it was over. The wait that felt like years but was only weeks was finally behind me. I felt her deep inside my bones, down to the very darkened pit of my soul, the moment she stepped foot onto campus. I didn't need to see her to feel her—to know she was there.

Something else tells me she's arrived—a divine, undying thread, tying us together.

Like the sensation that swept through me when seeing her name on the roster, something inside of me awakens. I can almost smell her, though I don’t know her scent yet. A wave of broken, irreparable nostalgia crashes over me, as if a memory is just beyond my reach—slipping in slow motion from my fingers, dripping like the last few drops of blood from a drained enemy.

I can almost feel it, almost see it. A moment on the verge of clarity—her scent, her laughter, her touch. But then, it vanishes, leaving everything dull once more. All her vibrant colors drain from behind my eyelids, and life is again nothing more than a black-and-white horror film that won’t stop replaying...

Until I glance out the window of my third-story classroom, where I teach ancient relic studies. There she is, her being pulling at mine as though our destinies have always been intertwined, as though she is here for me and me alone.

She steps out of a vehicle, her long, dark hair billowing in the country wind. A sense of familiarity rolls through the air like distant, angry thunder, and I instinctively clutch my chest, a strange, rippling sensation spreading through my core like wildfire.

I don’t need to know anything more about this woman. She is the one my heart has been yearning for, for centuries. The only one capable of consuming my soul within hers. Of taming the very monster she turned me into.

She, alone, is the one I've thought of every second of every minute of every single day of this cursed life.

I don't know how it's possible, but she's here. She’s home.

My lover. My nightmare.

I can't wait to taste what's mine.